EIM Hyperlinks
Yesterday we did our Sprint 1 Review for EIM v3.3.0.0. Among the features is the ability to launch a EIM conversation from a link. If you happen to be reading this and have EIM installed, click here to see what I mean. It works by using a registry entry to associate the pweim:// protocol with the client EXE file on your machine. We put in some extra magic via named pipes and .Net Remoting so that it doesn't open a new instance of the client if you already have one open, so it behaves pretty cleanly.
So that's all great and dandy, but what you're probably more interested in is how to create these links. It's really just a special URI, like any other link you might see such as http://www.passageways.com/ In this case, the protocol is http://, for the pweim link well replace that with pweim:// and then follow it up with the [only] command "startconversation". This will start EIM if it hasn't been started already, allow the user to log in, and then show the Send IM Dialog. So the most basic link looks like:
Next, you may want to specify a user that this conversation will be started with. We do this by including the "username" key in the query string and specifying the username. The username can be found in the Portal on the User Profile page. So if I want to know Matt's username, I'd do a search of the Employee Directory for "Matt Magurany" and find his profile. I find that his username is "matt", so this link would look like:
Alternatively, I can use his userID which is a GUID. That link might look like this:
Lastly, you can also include a message that will appear in the message input area by using the "message" key in the query string, forming a link that looks like this:
The great [but not officially supported] thing about this is you can put these links just about anywhere. You can roll your own custom module and have links to users that fire up EIM. You can put an EIM link in your email signature in Outlook. You can put it in a Word document, a PDF, or any other place you put a web link. If they do not have EIM they'll get a 404 Web Page not found error. Otherwise, if they click the link and have EIM installed they're on their way!
So that's all great and dandy, but what you're probably more interested in is how to create these links. It's really just a special URI, like any other link you might see such as http://www.passageways.com/ In this case, the protocol is http://, for the pweim link well replace that with pweim:// and then follow it up with the [only] command "startconversation". This will start EIM if it hasn't been started already, allow the user to log in, and then show the Send IM Dialog. So the most basic link looks like:
pweim://startconversationNext, you may want to specify a user that this conversation will be started with. We do this by including the "username" key in the query string and specifying the username. The username can be found in the Portal on the User Profile page. So if I want to know Matt's username, I'd do a search of the Employee Directory for "Matt Magurany" and find his profile. I find that his username is "matt", so this link would look like:
pweim://startconversation?username=mattAlternatively, I can use his userID which is a GUID. That link might look like this:
pweim://startconversation?userid=863e10fe-628c-42e7-a4e8-02be93e99aeeLastly, you can also include a message that will appear in the message input area by using the "message" key in the query string, forming a link that looks like this:
pweim://startconversation?username=matt&message=Hello+Matt!The great [but not officially supported] thing about this is you can put these links just about anywhere. You can roll your own custom module and have links to users that fire up EIM. You can put an EIM link in your email signature in Outlook. You can put it in a Word document, a PDF, or any other place you put a web link. If they do not have EIM they'll get a 404 Web Page not found error. Otherwise, if they click the link and have EIM installed they're on their way!
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